A Splintered Labyrinth
by guava-electric
Summary: Hermione returns to Hogwarts intent on burying herself in the Restricted Section to learn everything she can about old magics that have been censored from public memory. Her newest personal crusade becomes a bit more complicated when she catches the interest of Theodore Nott. Other gets involved. Things spiral out of control.
1. Post-War Woes and a New Purpose

Chapter One: Post War Woes and a New Purpose

The war stripped away Hermione's capacity to lie to herself about who and what she was.

The Sorting Hat placed her in Gryffindor not because she was glory seeking, or reckless, or more courageous than others, but because of her idealism and her singular dedication to progress. The hat told her explicitly that she was clearly not a Hufflepuff—for reasons unspecified—but that she also was clearly neither a Ravenclaw nor a Slytherin because—while she hungered for knowledge and harbored a well-disguised ruthless streak that ran deep—she would always use what she learned towards a greater purpose.

She would sneak in the restricted section to learn complex warding spells that would help her and her friends survive the war that was to come. She would methodically catalogue people's weakness and quirks to get to know them better and to use against them if and only if they betrayed her or someone she loved. After what she dubbed the Pest Incident of 1995, Hermione secretly began to keep a heavily warded jewelry box that appeared delicate and innocuous— it was the size and thickness of a deck of cards with a surface comprised of shards of mirrors. This box—with the use of an illegal yet nifty undetectable extension charm—contained dossiers of just about everyone she or Harry had met in the Wizarding world along.

And, well, if her plans to help Harry were just a touch more complicated than necessary and happened to satisfy her drive to test her limits by say mastering polyjuice potion at age twelve or by playing around with actual _time travel_, well that was all just incidental of course.

Those who saw Hermione as Gryffindor's Golden Girl—a perfect prefect who only occasionally broke the rules when necessary—thought that she had led Umbridge to the Forbidden Forest as a desperate last resort devised in the heat of the moment.

Only Harry and Ron (and, well, Luna who truly _saw _the people around her) knew her well enough to see the truth.

The truth was that Hermione had been planning Umbridge's downfall from the very night that she first waited up in the Gryffindor common room with murtlap essence to heal Harry's scarred hand. She didn't know exactly how it would shake out before hand, but she had catalogued the terrible woman's weaknesses.

By that point in her short but eventful life, she already had Rita Skeeter firmly under her thumb, a feat achieved through kidnapping and blackmail, and the subsequent upkeep that consisted of sending randomly timed little reminders to the woman (that could not be traced back to Hermione, not even by the most diligent of aurors) that she had a jar on hand prepared for her if she stepped out of line.

Thus, Skeeter was nicely squared away as a mouthpiece for Harry when everyone was bent on discrediting or silencing him. She told herself that she was doing a service to the Wizarding World by enforcing standards of journalistic integrity. She was even helping a friend by increasing the sales for and raising the profile of the _Quibbler_. In her book, that basically made her an honorary Hufflepuff, despite what the blasted Sorting Hat had neglected to explain to her out of sheer negligence.

Hermione loved to plan and to research and most of all _to win._

So when the adrenaline and the high that came from surviving against all the odds faded away after the final battle, Hermione was left a bit adrift in what came next.

She had no plan other than to get her NEWTs and to recover her parents. And her long-standing objective: to combat the prejudice and willful ignorance of the Wizarding world.

Except that a life dedicated to slowly changing perceptions of herself and all muggle-borns as well as of magical beings through official channels—as a ministry drone in the DMLE or the DRCMC—seemed a dreary fate in the aftermath of the war and in light of what she had already sacrificed for her world.

Hermione wasn't opposed to using her public persona as the Wizarding world's Golden Girl—though the title chafed even more now that she knew that it was a semi-permanent moniker—to get thing done, yet she she enjoyed the freedom that came from her independence from the Ministry of Magic. After all, her, Harry, and Ron had succeeded in ousting Riddle precisely because they weren't afraid of going against the Ministry and their capricious dictates.

* * *

Hermione, Harry, and Ron were free in the month after the battle to use their newfound influence to call for reconciliation despite the frenzied, divided climate of public opinion.

The new head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, John Dawlish, was taking a page from Barty Crouch Senior's book and calling for extreme measures against anyone with even a whiff of a connection to Death Eaters. Kingsley Shacklebolt, the newly elected Minister of Magic, tried to temper Dawlish, but with public opinion behind him, the head of the DMLE proved difficult to impede.

Too many people had lost loved ones in the war and were eager for a pound of flesh, whatever the source. Dawlish was keen to deliver, desperate as he was to keep his tenuous hold on his prestigious position. It just so happened many of the worst offenders like Antonin Dolohov and Fenrir Greyback had escaped after the battle and still evaded capture in early July. The DMLE turned to prosecuting minors to distract the public from their failure to track down renegade wizards.

Harry and Hermione's testimonies in front of the Wizengamot in defense of Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott (put on trial just for the stain of having a Death Eater as a father), and others who were still in school during the war but who were accused of being sympathizers or collaborators, led to mixed reactions from a traumatized and still healing public.

It was Ron and Ginny's co-authored statement to the press that held the most weight in tempering public opinion. It got many people to reconsider their hardline demands for harsh punitive sentences for minors. It allowed for moderate voices—who advocated for rehabilitative options for those who were coerced and threatened into Voldemort's service— to gain traction and legitimacy in the court of public opinion.

In an open letter that was published on the front page of the _Prophet_, Ron and Ginny wrote that although they had lost their brother to this war—to Death Eaters and Riddle—they both knew what it meant to have to make impossible choices in order to protect themselves and their families. They knew what it was like to go to war as school children, what it meant to have to shoulder the burden of the previous generation's mistakes because the adults wouldn't act themselves.

Everyone in their family signed the letter in order to drive home the point that their message came from the Weasleys and the Prewetts—families who had fought against Riddle and lost family in both wars—and yet even they weren't out for the blood of school children unlike the sanctimonious fence-sitters who stayed silent and safe in a Wizarding Britain controlled by Death Eaters. These same silent collaborators who now were intent on stoking conflict and division between the two polar political extremes in the post-war climate. After all, if both sides self-destructed, well that just meant there was more power available to the neutralists, didn't it?

The sentiment and message for the letter came entirely from Ginny, Ron, and the rest of the Weasley family. Hermione helped a little in the very early stages of conception and then during editing.

She provided Ron and Ginny with extensive historical examples of healing and reconciliation after extreme violence in the Muggle world, as well as books on international diplomatic and military history. Ron—not usually one for rigorous intellectual pursuits—devoured her offerings with a fervor that shocked everyone who knew him.

Ron explained his newfound scholarly dedication and surprising show of equanimity towards Malfoy, Nott, and the like with a slightly sheepish smile on his lips that faded as his speech became more impassioned.

"Look, I trust 'Mione to help me make sense of this nonsense. None of the tossers who want to lock up Malfoy and assorted random Slytherins lifted a single finger to stop You-Kn— Riddle's ascension to power." He said, turning a darker shade of red as his irritation grew.

"So they can piss off, or stay quiet now and listen to those of us who actually risked ourselves when it mattered. Malfoy's likely still a complete wanker and I'm not about to go seek him out to hold hands and skip through the Forbidden Forest, but he's not Tom Riddle. He's not Umbridge. When it mattered, he didn't comply. He tried to spare us. I'll take Malfoy everyday over Ministry wankers who will go free just because they were 'only doing their jobs.'""

He nodded to himself, satisfied, before going on a tangent that made less and less sense to his audience of Hermione, Harry, and a suspicious pigeon. Animagus? _No_, Hermione chided herself, _she needed to stop being so paranoid._

"Besides who could _not _end up being right pain in the arse with Lucius sodding Malfoy as a father? Imagine the sheer amount of beauty products in that manor. There must've been a whole wing in that place dedicated to that man's hair."

He grew louder as he continued his rant on and Hermione glanced around them, checking that they weren't overheard: _War Hero Ron Weasley Insults Death Eater's Hair-care Routine _would be a frankly ridiculous headline to have to deal with.

"No wonder Malfoy Jr. overcompensated with his broomsticks at school—he knew his slicked back 'do would never match up to his father's locks_ or _Harry's effortlessly tousled look." Hermione nodded, wanting to show her support of Ron's perspective, which grew more and more open the more he read about war and peace. She chose to gently file away the diatribe on Malfoy's hair for later analysis.

Hermione had written a separate, private letter to the Wizengamot before the trials of those who detractors, like Amos Diggory and Auror Dawlish, called the "School-yard Death Eaters" in their sensationalist op-eds to _The Daily Prophet._

She wrote that Draco Malfoy had indeed done evil deeds, and would have to sort through the consequences himself, but that did not make him an evil person. Quoting, Hannah Arendt— who detailed how the Holocaust and its design was executed by the most banal of bureaucrats— she wrote that evil "can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface," and that "under conditions of terror most people will comply but _some people will not… _Humanly speaking, no more is required and no more can be reasonably asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation."

She detailed how many collaborators in the Ministry would go free, despite having designed, funded, and organized offices like the Muggle-Born Registration Committee due to the so-called mundanity of their offenses. She pointed out that Dolores Umbridge would walk free. She finished by writing:

_If Draco Malfoy would spend life in Azkaban for his crimes, then I will personally ensure that every single person who put their names on the decrees to capture me and people like me will serve their time as well. You argue they were coerced? Very well, Draco Malfoy was coerced yet he chose a critical time not to comply under conditions of terror when he chose not to identify myself, Harry, and Ron in Malfoy Manor last April while Ministry collaborators were busy spreading the fungus of evil with quills and flying paper memos. He was one of the few to do _something. _Remember:_ _The Order has records of every measly galleon that freely funded Voldemort's ministry and his policies. If you try to re-write this narrative to put the blame on the students, you will hear from us. _

_I'll be watching. _

Yours sincerely,

Hermione J. Granger.

It was Ron who pushed for Hermione to include a not so veiled threat in her closing statement and to sign her name instead of writing anonymously. "'Mione, there is nothing the Ministry would fear more than revolution lead by Hermione Granger with a legitimate cause and the support of public opinion. People fear Harry now for his defeat of Voldemort, but we both know the only person Harry fears is you."

Hermione—the very picture of emotional instability— ran to hug Ron, tears streaming down her face and sporting a slightly manic smile that wouldn't be out of place on post-Azkaban Sirius Black.

Hermione enjoyed a nice threat here and there to get things done, and it was touching that Ron and Harry still feared little ol' her. But she dearly hoped the Wizengamot didn't test her resolve, because then she would have to go and head a political campaign— for purebloods, no less—when all she wanted to do was learn more about magic. It wouldn't do for her threats to lose meaning.

Ron was left speechless and a touch unsteady from Hermione's emotional display, but inwardly, he preened. Hermione and Ron's friendship had grown stronger and more balanced after everything they survived together in the war. They agreed that they wouldn't make a good romantic pair, but they each had revelations about their friendship in the Chamber of Secrets: Hermione realized that Ron had truly come to believe in her and trust her strength as well as her intellect when he pushed her to destroy Hufflepuff's cup. And Ron realized that she saw him—overshadowed, sixth son him—as a steadying force, as someone she could rely on in return.

They, naturally, still argued—too frequently for Harry's liking—but it was never as vicious or hurtful as it had been while they were in school.

* * *

When they received a letter from McGonagall offering them the opportunity to return for an "eighth year," in lieu of their lost seventh year, Hermione immediately replied 'yes.'

Harry began his three year long training to become an Auror. He could help Andromeda take care of Teddy that way. He could also keep an eye on Dawlish and others in the DMLE who were too overzealous in the persecution of Death Eaters or sympathizers with underwhelming evidence. And who were eager to bury their own complicity with the Death Eaters by loudly pointing fingers at others.

Harry hadn't forgotten what the Ministry did to Sirius. Preventing another case like Sirius's is what drove him to become an Auror even though he was, frankly, quite exhausted with hunting dark wizards.

Ron decided that he was going to help George run the joke shop. While he had continued his newfound hobby of reading about Muggle diplomatic and military history, he knew that he wouldn't do well at Hogwarts and away from his family while they were all still mourning Fred.

Ron was already excited and buried in in invention ideas for the shop. He did not shy from hard work, especially if the result of his efforts was something as concrete (and excellent) as his latest invention: the Collapsible Cauldron.

The Collapsible Cauldron was a perfectly innocuous standard Hogwarts issue cauldron that would fold in on itself on nonverbal command and then explode in order to create a convenient distraction in Potions that could be blamed on the poor craftsmanship of the cauldron rather than on the failings of the brewer. This very concept had helped him get through five miserable years of potions with Snape and a whole summer of listening to Percy go on about cauldron thickness.

He wanted the new generation of Hogwarts student to have more ways to escape Potions than he did as a youth, he said in an advert campaign that was only visible to those younger than eighteen. Many of his inventions, Ron realized, had come from his very core, his truest self from when he was still living at the Burrow or a Hogwarts student and had wanted one of two very essential things. Firstly, to fend off his siblings from touching his stuff, and secondly, to avoid doing his tedious schoolwork.

* * *

Hermione, on the other hand, held onto her education as a grounding force. Academics were a familiar purpose to dedicate her energy towards while she tried to figure out her future.

She would never be the same eager bookworm dedicated to following the rules that she entered Hogwarts as because that version of her began to die a slow death when Voldemort was no longer a mention in a history book or a villain in her friend's past, but instead a real and present threat to Harry—who was _hers _to protect—that inhabited the space under Quirrell's turban.

No, she had accepted herself, ruthless tendencies and all. She contained multitudes.

This year, Hermione wanted to see how far she could push the limits of her knowledge and power as she tried to uncover the how's and why's of magic itself.

Hermione was forced to admit to herself that Xenophilius Lovegood was correct when he called her narrow-minded for dismissing the Deathly Hallows as a mere fairy-tale.

At the time she had grasped so tightly onto the mission of horcrux hunting that, in her mind, Harry's obsessive tendency turning towards the Elder Wand felt like a catastrophic distraction from the Plan.

Now, while Hermione would never be a natural at trusting her gut over her meticulous plans, she knew that she had very large gaps in her understandings of the magical world. She had learned to trust her intuition more during the war, and she came to admit that she could stand to be a bit more like Luna. Although it hurt her pride grievously.

However, there were too many aspects of her time in the magical world that defied explanation.

While the horcrux hunt had stalled Hermione's formal education, her efforts in the war had opened her eyes to the fact that Hogwarts had set strict borders on what students could and could not study and challenged her strictly structural approach to magic.

In theory, Hermione understood the necessity of limiting who could access certain information, like for example who could learn about horcruxes and how to create them—no one wanted another mad immortal overlord, after all. But she had realized that the censorship of undisputedly dark material was not singular but instead part of a larger pattern of information suppression.

To her frustration, the only place she could find practical material on understanding how to break apart, design, and counter the type of dark curses that Death Eaters like Dolohov invented and used liberally during the war, was in the Black family library.

Her study in the Hogwarts library revealed several holes in the Defense section as the materials she needed to reference became darker and more dangerous. The Restricted Section held many tomes that had been banned outside of Hogwarts, but every school year the collection _seemed_ to grow just a touch smaller.

As a result, Hermione had learned to become a more inventive and creative spell-caster during the war. If books containing legitimately damaging spells constituted the entire limit of the knowledge gaps Hermione encountered, she might have left well enough alone.

However, her time in the Ministry of Magic's library and archives— one of three public libraries in the whole of Wizarding Britain—she realized the sheer number of irregularities and they were staggering. Having read through the entire Black family library, she recognized titles of familiar book and authors— but the books themselves were entirely altered.

It seemed that at different points in magical history, the Ministry had decided to severely limit public knowledge, replacing everything ranging from historical accounts of rituals that relied on wand-less group casting to information on blood magic with watered down versions of the tomes.

The curators of the library had replaced books on topics as innocuous as tomes traditional ways of celebrating Samhain and Beltane with obviously censored re-writes published—in some cases—centuries after the originals. Noticing the discrepancies in publishing dates of books in the Ministry's central library and in documents in its archive served as a shock to Hermione.

It was, essentially, the equivalent of _Hic Sunt Dracones _for academics: Here be dragons. Beware witches and wizards, this way lie the unparalleled dangers of knowledge and historical context.

* * *

Hermione was incensed. She knew _The Daily Prophet _and the wizarding press in general could not be relied upon to be accurate, but she had never had reason to distrust the books available to her. She hated feeling naïve and ignorant.

For example, the lack of available books on magical beings and their histories, even in the mostly intact Hogwarts library, was why she understood _nothing _about house-elf magic until she decided to interview house elves a month after the Battle of Hogwarts as part of her quest for knowledge not found in any library _she _had access to. (A more self-deprecating part of her whispered that she had never even thought to ask elves what they thought when she campaigned for S.P.E.W did she?). But it did not do to dwell on the past.

As Hermione took the time for reflection post-war, she knew that needed to understand why her efforts during her fifth year had terrified and ostracized the house-elves.

She received special permission from McGonagall to visit and speak with the elves during their off-hours, presenting a peace offering to the Hogwarts elves that agreed to speak with her. The little information she could find about house-elves indicated their love for honey, so she had baked them a honey-soaked cake topped with decorative flowers.

The three house-elfs that sat down to speak with Hermione had graciously accepted her gesture and explained to her that their relationship with witches and wizards was _meant to be _symbiotic but that most Wizarding folk, even those from Ancient and Noble Houses, had forgotten the history of House-elf-Wizarding relations and essentially ended up voiding their contracts with house-elves without the wizards in question even knowing it. This was the reason why Dobby could defy Lucius Malfoy despite being technically bound to him in order to help Harry before receiving his first sock.

Tilly—the oldest house-elf at Hogwarts who was tasked with carrying the stories of her lineage and teaching younger elves about their history (a position, Hermione learned, that was passed down to the eldest female elf in a household or workspace)—explained that when a house-elf found themselves with an abusive master who had voided the sacred agreement of symbiosis between their species, they could choose to leave and risk becoming weaker without their access to the household's magic, or they could find someone new with whom to open a contract.

* * *

Hermione's ignorance about house-elves was just one example in what likely constituted a sea of major limitations to her knowledge, as well as limitations to the general knowledge that was lost to the entire modern Wizarding world due to the suppression of "dangerous" works—a label that seemed to be haphazardly slapped onto vastly different schools of magic.

Books that Hermione had devoured in the Hogwarts and Black family library on old wizarding traditions were conspicuously missing in the Ministry library, a library that the entire government used to find information to create laws and govern Wizarding Britain.

Censorship of information was paired with the tendency toward historical revisionism that pushed the narrative that pureblood wizards had been the impetus behind all progress in the Wizarding world, ignoring the contributions of muggle-borns, half-bloods, and most especially of Muggle-born witches and magical beings.

While the approach towards muggle-borns in both past and current politics and academic works was paternalistic, the approach towards muggles was obscene. The only information she had found on muggles was decades out of date and focused on their inferiority and lack of magic. The only recent texts were on the various threats muggles posed to wizarding society.

The books available in the Hogwarts library were similar on this subject, with the difference being the Hogwarts library had sprinkled in a few useless books written by wizards on various muggle appliances. She shuddered to think of the books on muggles that blood purists must have in their collections.

Both extreme poles of the political spectrum—generally divided between those advocated for the "preservation of Wizarding traditions" (and typically, bloodlines) and those who advocated for progress and moving away completely away from traditional or old magic.

Hardliners in the former camp argued for the exclusion of muggle-borns from the wizarding world to prevent dilutions of wizarding traditions, believing that muggle-borns were incapable of learning and adapting to old customs in addition to having inherently weaker magic.

The other side argued for changes that struck against the traditionalists' power, like banning Samhain rituals and advocating for confiscating artefacts and searching libraries. They framed their mandates as measures taken to protect muggle-borns from harm and to make the wizarding world more palatable to the "outsiders."

Hermione gleaned these facts between the lines of books such as _Progressive Wizards of the Early 20th Century _and_ Understanding the Muggle Threat. _

She read other classic works, like an anthology that contained essays and speeches from different wizards through history that advocated for muggle-hunting. That text paired nicely with the collected writings of politicians ranging from inspiring figures like Damocles Rowle—a spectacularly unpopular minister whose claim to fame was being the architect of the Shite-hole Where Dreams Go to Die that was more commonly known as Azkaban—to an ancestor of Cornelius Fudge that appeared to be as equally spineless as his progeny.

Even the struggle against Gellert Grindelwald, an all and out war that had lasted years and that Hermione _knew _muggle-borns and magical beings contributed to, was boiled down to the final duel between Albus Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Only Great Men kept their narratives in-tact it seemed. She wondered how long it would be until "the Golden Trio" became the adventures of Harry and Ron.

The more she read, the more incensed she became.

* * *

Hermione knew that, much to her extreme displeasure, she had more limitations than most to her resources because she was a first generation witch with no sponsor.

Hermione deduced that the Ministry's censorship affected Ministry-funded libraries the most and the Hogwarts library to a lesser degree, allowing the most impunity to purebloods with private collections—especially those with enough foresight to hide portions of their collection that had gone out "out of vogue." Like their tomes on sacrificial protective magic, or their anthologies on necromancy, or the primary accounts describing the medieval practice of taking children to public executions so that they would be able to see thestrals at a young age. This scholarly impunity likely also extended to private entities like Gringotts.

It wasn't that she _wanted_ to learn how to properly arrange the organs of a Gytrash into a ritual circle to add an extra layer of protections from dark creatures to her parent's new home in Chiswick (her mother had, post-recovery, explained to Hermione that the neighborhood change suited her burgeoning passion for art history that she had cultivated as a retiree in Australia as it had the right vibes or feel or some such nonsense that had no place coming out the mouth of her practical dentist of a mother).

Anyway, she had no desire to perform ancient sacrificial blood magic in the midst of an apparently trendy Muggle neighborhood. It was simply the_ principle_ of the thing.

The fact that the Ministry—the ineffective, myopic Ministry of Magic that had denied the return of Voldemort for a whole entire year until he was literally waving a wand in front their thick faces—had the power to limit what she read was unacceptable.

While Hogwarts had certain autonomy—and the tendency to stick anything deemed too dangerous into the Restricted Section without having to alter the collection itself—Ministry dictates could still affected the contents of the general library and of the curriculum.

She had always assumed that Binns' dry and out of date history lessons were a result of a staffing issue. However, Binns' lessons, completely irrelevant to current realities, combined with the recorded trend of censoring magic and editing history to suit the needs of the Minister in power, suggested that Binns' continued post could have a more sinister, or at least more calculated, reason behind it.

After all knowledge was the root of power, and the study of history, in particular, allowed people in the present day to understand the predecessors to current political movements or general trends.

While she couldn't fix decades, maybe even centuries of censorship, she could work to fill in the gaps of knowledge for herself.

* * *

So, during her summer holiday, Hermione set herself to understanding the origins and the extent of academic censorship in the Wizarding world, so as to better form a research plan for the upcoming year. The more arcane the magic, the better.

Or at least she researched in the time she had in between retrieving her parents, setting up their lives again in London, and collaborating with mind healers at St. Mungo's to restore their memories as well as attending mind healing sessions with her Hogwarts year mates twice weekly (a requirement for those who wanted to return to Hogwarts and _strongly_ recommended for anyone not returning).

It was there, in the bowels of the ministry archives sometime in mid-August, that Theodore Nott re-appeared in her life.

She knew who he was, of course. He was a classmate, and one whose father was a known Death Eater. She didn't condemn him for it; she had just noted it in his file.

As he cleared his throat behind her, Hermione went from intently sorting through the myriad of censorship laws passed after the defeat of Grindelwald in 1945—to holding a wand against his throat before she processed who he was and rationalized that a true threat wouldn't clear his throat to not-so subtly announce their presence before attacking.

Hermione grimaced slightly at how her reaction gave away that she was still excessively paranoid and jumpy—she did not want to come across like Mad-Eye after all.

Even if she was still seriously considering getting Constant Vigilance as a tattoo on her wand-arm partly as a testament to Moody, but mostly because she had survived the war. It would also be a nice visual foil to the awful blood-red slur carved into her left arm.

She did her best to recover from her blunder by giving him a slight nod of acknowledgement and providing a curt "Nott. Apologies." Despite her effort at faking aplomb, her cheeks shone pink, visible even under the poor lighting available in the Ministry archives. She assumed the dim lighting was a calculated tactic to hinder those who looked for answers in its depths, but then again, that's just what she would do in their position.

"Granger." He nodded in return and seemed to mull over what to say next, this being new territory for them both.

He cleared his throat again—did the man need a cough drop? "No need to apologize for war-time habits. We all have them. They can be…difficult to break."

It took Hermione a moment to realize that was all he intended to say and that it was now her turn to move along this interaction. Well yes, indeed. What a cryptic thing to say to an acquaintance, she thought to herself as she searched for an appropriate way to respond to that.

She'd never been good at picking up on social cues with new people, despite the fact that her filing system ensured that she knew Nott's family lineage going back six generations, his father's net-worth and Wizengamot voting trends before the war, and that he preferred coffee to tea.

She decided to go with their only apparent common ground: their geographic proximity.

"Are you also interested in studying legislation passed after Grindelwald's defeat in 1945? Or does your interest lie more in understanding the mating habits of Gryndilows as recorded by a team of Irish magizoologists in 1954?"

Nott's face turned pink even as his lips gave a slight twitch upwards and she didn't quite understand why. It wasn't _her _fault that the Ministry archives were organized by an incompetent fool who decided an alphabetical system alone would make sense, without _first _organizing by subject matter. How Wizarding Britain hadn't yet gone the way of Atlantis or Pompeii was a complete mystery to her.

"No, neither, actually. I heard from Draco that you have been spending time here doing research and I wanted to speak with you."

Hermione had been pleased that she and Malfoy had gotten a new start in their small group therapy sessions and that the mind-healers didn't have to restrain either of them from exchanging blows.

Progress and healing were lovely. He also seemed at least politely interested in her study on the suppression of Wizarding traditions and censorship of old magic. It was hard to tell with Slytherins. Oh, Nott was still saying words.

"So, thank you for your Wizengamot testimony. I know we've not really interacted in school, but I appreciate that you spoke for me even though I mightn't have—" He took a deep breath and amended, "when I definitely would not have done the same if the situation were reversed. For that, I apologize."

Ah, gratitude tempered with pureblood guilt. Delicious.

"Thank you for seeking me out to say that, Nott. It's appreciated. Just don't dwell too much on hypotheticals. I spoke for you and Malfoy and the others because it was right. It wasn't only for your sakes. You were quite literally on trial for who your father was, and I think you understand why I might know what that's like."

She took a deep breath and moved to close this strange interaction. She had the unfortunate tendency to ramble on with new people or, even worse, to lecture them or unknowingly insult them.

"You owe me no debt. Just do what we're all trying to do: go and be an eighteen year old without a dark lord looming." She thought about stopping there but didn't want to end the conversation with a mention of Riddle.

So, instead, she proceeded to put her foot into her mouth. "There's a great coffee place ten minutes walk away from here called The Java Electric that you'd probably like. Don't let the Whitman pun discourage you. Go forth, enjoy your coffee, I won't judge you for disliking tea even if it means you're a bit of fake and might do better to study internationally."

She smiled slightly in order to smooth over her nonsensical joke, and added, "I look forward to seeing what obscure magical devices you improve on this year at school."

Nott looked like he was slightly _confunded_ for a moment before schooling his expression and going quickly from looking abashed and contrite to confused to amused and confident.

Hermione got whiplash just watching him wrestle his emotions under control. With just a quirk of his dark, annoyingly perfectly shaped eyebrow and a smirk that he could slap a patent onto he said, "Been watching me Granger?"

Hermione scoffed at the sheer gall of the man.

"Please, Nott. I watch everyone. I can name every single person who attended Hogwarts in our year and the ones below and above, and recite their family trees back five generations. Ten generations for Malfoy and every single Black that has ever lived, unfortunately. At a minimum." Nott looked like he was about to say something—maybe about purebloods being raised to do the same—so she added brusquely, "That includes the muggle-borns and half-bloods. Harry's alive and Riddle's dead in part because I am an effective researcher in both the magical and Muggle worlds. I noticed your innovations in charms because it was useful to know. I wasn't watching you because I think your arse is cute or you have a nice smile. I'm not Lavender Brown."

Hermione felt slightly guilty invoking Lavender—who had been very brave in the Battle of Hogwarts and had survived Greyback's vicious assault. Lavender had even began a beauty line—with cosmetics, robes, and undergarments—that was specially tailored towards witches who were coping with their scars and lost limbs from the war.

It was more out of habit than contempt that she invoked Lavender to try and distract from the truth that she_ had_ noticed Nott over the years as more than a potential enemy.

She should send Lavender a letter, later, telling her how much admired her work. Maybe encourage her to visit Ron. They could collaborate. Actually, now that she thought about it, Ron's speech about Lucius Malfoy's hair was suspiciously detailed—so that might be down to Lavender's influence.

Nott did not seem at all affected by her verbal dressing down, which was annoying and atypical in her experience. She would have gotten at least a wide-eyed exclamation of "bloody hell," from Ron by the point when she said, "your arse is cute" and a hasty, strategic retreat from Harry when she scoffed and glared.

She'd been told, repeatedly, that she made up for her lack of height with the weight of her _presence _and she was counting on on that to scare off people who interrupted her research with their too-perfect-to-be-natural smirks and their annoying dimples. And their admittedly nice arses.

Hermione was forced to face the fact that she had underestimated Theodore Nott, despite her perfectly researched file on his interests, family history, and habits, and that she had to deal with the consequences.

It was this oversight that led her to abandon her research at legislation passed in March of 1946 (_March- _who stops researching at_ March _of all months for Circe's sake_) _to walk with Nott to The Java Electric. She was yet again forced to face the sad truth that while dossiers were _very_ effective at dispatching her enemies they were sorely lacking in providing guidance for dealing with friendly almost-acquaintances in this strange post-war era.

Well, she mused, maybe Nott could be a co-conspirator in her efforts to push the boundaries of knowledge and learn old, forgotten magics. After all, one should endeavor to share weight and woe if they wanted to succeed in the modern day.

**A/N:** I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this story. It's my first attempt at fanfiction and I have just a bit of the story planned from here. I somehow ended up here with an 8th year fic that gets a little lost in Hermione's neuroses along the way and that features my take on the eternal query of whether Snape takes aside first-year Slytherins to teach them how to smirk and sneer properly (answer: yes he does, and some are better than others but none as good as Severus).

**Note: **edited as of July 2, 2019

**End Notes**

1)The Java Electric is a reference to Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" and also to my username because I'm a narcissist

2) A bit of a mis-quote from The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian: "Share weight and woe, for misfortune falls with double force on him that stands alone."


	2. Of Ferns and Fungus

**Note: **I edited Chapter 1 as of July 2, 2019 (the new version should say this towards the end). The background is largely the same with a few significant differences. I'd recommend a read if you get the chance. Check guava-electric on tumblr if you want an excerpt of a future chapter. Thank you for reading and thanks so much for the lovely reviews!

Chapter 2: Of Ferns and Fungus

Hermione and Theodore stepped out from the cool, shadowy protection of the Ministry of Magic's atrium into the outside world. It was an aggressively hot and sunny day, and Hermione had to take a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the brightness and noise of Central London.

Squinting at smudgy and ill-kept documents in the dimly lit bowels of the ministry was not kind on one's posture or on one's retinas, for that matter. As she shielded her eyes, she fancied that she felt a bit like how a sea cucumber might if plucked suddenly from the bottom of the ocean and then thrust under a harsh spotlight: strange, a touch misshapen, and very maladjusted to sunlight. But the cucumber wouldn't have to deal with a massive pile of hair that would frizz up to ridiculous heights in that blasted humidity. She did get thumbs and the capacity for rational thought in the bargain, though. Nobody's perfect.

Hermione kept what she hoped was a normal amount of distance between her and Theodore—he was firmly _Theodore, _potential co-conspirator, in her mind right now and needed to stay that way—and did her best to distract herself from her strange situation.

She tried to focus on cataloguing the physical sensations in her body—a grounding strategy that she learned in her group mind-healing sessions. She _would_ master mindfulness and show I-meditate-with-muggles-Malfoy and the startlingly well-adjusted Susan Bones that _she _could meditate and walk at the same time, too. Fuck. That reminded her that she absolutely had to find a goat yoga class in the area and quick. Malfoy could _not_ be allowed to win therapy. _Why is it a contest? Double fuck. I'll need to talk to Maisie about this next session. No goat yoga for the wrong reasons. _

Hermione earnestly tried to focus on the physical. She really did.

As she followed the path of a drop of sweat trickling down her chest, she immediately thought about the travesty that was wearing a bra in summertime just as she indulged in just a quick sweep of her surroundings. All clear. She really needed to either whip up a magical solution to boob sweat or embrace a bra-less existence until the fall. And try to optimize the Animagus reversal spell because really— she cut herself off.

She turned her attention back to her body again and could actually _feel_ the strain of her almost sentient hair working to break free from the tyranny of the Sleekeazy's (she now applied the stuff daily) so as to stretch out and fully embrace the humid, and slightly stale, air. Her own rebellious hair immediately made her think of Fleamont Potter, and she mused about how odd it was that a product made for good hair had been invented by Harry's grandfather. It seemed to her that not only had not a single one of his descendants ever gotten even a whiff of the stuff, but also that the entire family had gone on a generations-long comb boycott.

Tuning into the twist of her stomach, the booming heart palpitations in her chest, and the extra sweat of her palms brought her straight back to her reality. Which was Theodore Nott. Theodore Nott and her walking down a street. Theodore Nott and her walking down a street in Muggle London in full view of gods, men, and pigeons.

She chanced a glance over at the subject of her anxiety and then just as quickly looked away as she caught Nott looking at her, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned slightly downward and his eyes shining with—what? Amusement? Concern? Discomfort? Did she accidentally verbalize her grounding exercise and drop a stream-of-thought consciousness monologue on poor, unsuspecting Nott? Did her nose twitch, her hair crackle? Did she have more ink than usual on her face?

Luckily, the timely end of the longest ten minute walk of all time kept her from ruminating over the Slytherin's unreadable countenance. It also kept her from examining the particular _brand _of nerves she was feeling too closely.

A tiny voice inside her mind found the time, however, to whisper that_ this _specific cocktail of anxiety was the same sort of tension she had felt around Viktor in her fourth year and during the summer she went to visit him in Bulgaria, around Ron intermittently during school, and again around her fit muggle neighbor a couple of months ago. She squashed it.

All is a procession and hers finally led her to the safety of a niche café so out of place with its busy surroundings that more than one passerby gave the shop a wide berth, as if idleness could latch onto them, swiftly destroy all their white blood cells, and infect the whole bloody stock market, or slow down the corporate consultants intent on power-walking importantly in the middle of the pavement.

* * *

Theodore Nott contemplated every decision in his life that lead him to where he was now. In front of an obscenely bright yellow muggle coffee shop that had what appeared to be a giant mosaic of Albus Dumbledore in its window. It looked to be crafted from tiny colorful rectangles that looked fused together. He watched as smartly dressed muggles swerved away from it, as if they were old devils from the stories dodging consecrated ground, before he held open the door for his unlikely companion: Granger.

He'd wanted to find Granger and speak to her for a month now. The purebloods in his circle had gotten a hold of a letter Granger wrote to the Wizengamot that not-so-subtly implied she would start a revolution— armed if necessary— if any of them, including Malfoy, specifically Malfoy, got time in Azkaban.

Needless to say he was grateful, considering the Wizengamot had seemed prepared to give him five to ten years in Azkaban based on a random smattering of circumstantial evidence, according to his barrister. It seemed that fair trials did not matter when they were inconvenient politically.

When she publicly testified for their classmates, many of them had already seen her letter. So she'd planted and cultivated tenuous seeds of respect and support amongst many of the younger Slytherins and even some of their families, though Theo doubted she knew that.

More than grateful, though, he was intrigued. He knew Granger to be extremely intelligent and resourceful—she would have had to be to successfully keep those two walking human disasters she called friends alive and passing their classes year after year. And she beat him in every bloody class, except charms where he drew even with her.

Yet he'd never imagined her as _cunning_ or the least bit ruthless. She had been firmly a Gryffindor in his mind: reckless, self-righteous, blunt, and tactless. Unattainable. An ideal. With nice legs and lovely—_dammit, focus._ He never in a thousand years would have imagined her throwing her political weight around to _threaten _the dusty old sods on the Wizengamot. It was magnificent.

If Malfoy were to be believed, this letter was the very least of the morally grey things she had done in the name of justice. So, of course, Theo wanted to speak to Granger. Foremost, to genuinely thank her for speaking for him and her other sworn enemies that might've wanted her dead a year or so ago, or at least that came from families with parents who tried to kill her. But also to satisfy his curiosity.

He had debated extensively whether he should try to speak with Granger face-to-face. If he'd been the person he'd been before the horror of a seventh year under the Carrows, he might have just sent a stiffly polite letter of thanks, like he knew many of his year-mates would do. He wasn't the same person, though. The war had been a crucible that had tested him and changed him yes, but the death of the Dark Lord had altered him in stranger ways that he could not yet explain.

Without the Dark Lord and his deranged father looming over him, he found himself more driven, but also, strangely more impulsive where he had been completely calculated and cunning before. His accidental magic had also been acting up since that day, resulting in a number of burnt settees in various manors across the UK and several annoyed friends.

Meeting with Granger was both a calculated and impulsive decision. He wanted to suss out any ulterior motives she might have and figure out what made her tick. Yes, she'd be a valuable ally, he justified to himself. He needed more allies in this political climate, especially considering his imminent return to Hogwarts.

But a tiny, more honest voice reminded him he'd been drawn to Granger back when she was the exact opposite of a potentially helpful ally, and that it had had been this pull he felt that finally got him to enter the thrice-damned Ministry. He squashed it.

Granger had thrown him completely off-guard what with jumping from Grindylow sex patterns to muggle coffee shops to his arse in rapid-fire conversation. She was impossible to predict.

Luckily, it seemed she had been just as thrown off by him. He didn't imagine she told any random stranger about her obsessive filing system. He thought he'd won a small victory when she conceded to get coffee with him, and he'd smugly savored her resentful blush and her tiny huff of frustration. But, now, as they were seated at a small table by the window with their tiny cups and tiny drinks and their long, looming silence, he wasn't so sure of himself.

* * *

Hermione needed to break the silence, start some sort of innocuous conversation with Nott, or else she was going to disapparate in full sight of muggles to escape this failed social experiment. But no. She was Hermione fucking Granger and she didn't run, she only made tactical retreats thank you very much. She especially did not run from the likes of Theodore.

She needed to find a way to subtly work her interest in slightly grey-bordering-on-dark magics into the conversation so she didn't seem suspicious or grasping. She imagined a jumped up muggle-born asking a pureblood scion from a family of blood purists to crack open their private collections might be a social faux-pas, or at the very least inelegant.

She opened her mouth, and:

"What do you know about elemental magic?"

"So, evil is a fungus?"

Both Theo and Hermione had blurted out their questions simultaneously, and thoughtlessly, and then winced as if they were awkwardly dancing in time to terrible, arrhythmic music.

"Evil is a fungus?"

"Elemental magic?"

Merlin, she should have just disapparated. She chugged her entire, way too strong, way too tiny espresso, and winced as she felt the scalding heat of the drink slide down her throat, giving Theodore a chance to speak without interruption.

"I just meant— I mean— I read the letter you wrote to the Wizengamot. And you said— you said that evil was a fungus and that collaborators spread it with—uh—ink and quills. I thought that was br—insightful." Theodore finally got his sentence out, but looked very displeased with the way his words had linked together.

Hermione had never seen a Slytherin so tongue-tied and… ineloquent. She'd certainly never seen _Nott_ like this. It was endearing, and comforting. She felt some of her usual confidence returning.

"Tsk, tsk Theodore, reading private government documents. You should really respect others' privacy," she said with a voice full of exaggerated reproach, fully aware that she'd bent the rules a time or two before. And had allegedly threatened violent revolt to get her way in aforementioned private government document. "And _I _didn't say that. Those words come from a muggle philosopher, Hannah Arendt. She wrote about the nature of evil in regards to a past muggle genocide. Wizards really need to read more. Ronald_ loves _Arendt."

"Right, Weasley reads philosophy for fun, while you blackmailed a reporter and kept her in a jar our fourth year. Next you're going to tell me that Potter's harboring the Dark Lord."

"Malfoy's been blabbing about Skeeter? Tosser," she muttered without real heat.

"Right," Nott said looking vaguely surprised before he collected himself.

"What was it you said earlier? Elemental magic? You don't hear a lot about that these days." Despite trying to keep a neutral facade, Nott leaned in a shade closer, bringing his elbows up the table. His forest green eyes, a shade darker than Harry's but with little flecks of gold surrounding the retinas, were focused intently on her.

"Yes. Elemental magic. As Malfoy likely told you, I've been looking through the Ministry library and archives this summer. The discrepancies I've found are concerning. I'm not interested in learning watered down, ineffectual magic. One of the topics that seems the most limited, apart from blood magic, seemed to be elemental magic. I'd read about the basics in Grimmauld Place, but haven't been able to suss out more." She looked even more reserved than she had before, holding his gaze, but seemingly bracing herself for a shut-down. This type of magic wasn't widely discussed anymore, despite the ban on practicing it— passed in 1945 after the defeat of Grindelwald— having been lifted in the 1980s.

* * *

Merlin. Something about Granger turned him into a bumbling fool. He hadn't pulled off one single confident smirk or felt even a bit at ease since sitting down in this strange environment— with its still photos, very relaxed muggle clientele, and deliciously strong expresso. And with a very unsettling Granger sitting across from in muggle jeans and a white top that had a vaguely v-shaped neckline. Snape would be ashamed of him for letting Granger throw him so off guard.

The crazy bint just up and mentioning _both _blood magic and elemental magic in a very public (though muggle) place did not help matters one bit. He cleared his throat, a nervous habit he resorted to when he wasn't quite sure how to proceed with a conversation.

This felt like a trap. He'd always been taught that muggle-borns feared older, wilder magics, associating it with Dark magic, as it was labeled by lesser wizards. It was one part of why his father hated muggle-borns, and why he'd been brought up with stories of evil magic-hating muggles and their progeny they sent to expose and destroy the wizarding world. Obviously, he knew most of it was rubbish _now_, yet it felt like a shock to his system for Granger to bring wilde magic and _blood _magic up so frankly.

"Blood magic? Elementals?," he asked as he leaned back in his tiny purple chair and lazily crossed his long legs behind the tiny, aggressively bright blue table in that cursed coffee shop. He hit his head on a bloody hanging plant. It rather ruined the effect of suavely leaning back and relaxing his face to look completely unbothered. He must look a sight in this shop built for color-blind elves.

"You do know the connotations those particular branches of magic carry with them, don't you Granger? Some of your Order friends might just say that you're looking to dabble in dark magic, you know. Tsk tsk," Nott said, adopting Granger's earlier reproachful tone and hoping that would put an end to the stressful conversation.

Granger just rolled her eyes and huffed noisily. "Look, no need to deflect. We can cut this conversation short if you want. This isn't a trap Nott. Ask Malfoy. While I haven't brought up those specific terms, he knows I've become truly interested in older, less widely practiced magic."

She became more excited the more she went on. At one point, her wildly gesticulating arm almost hit an older muggle gentleman in the face. Granger took no notice. "All I'm saying is that it's suspicious how thoroughly the Ministry censors its library— both of practical magic tomes and history— and it's suspicious how no one has seemed to say anything about that. The edits don't even _seem _consistent—the censors used different fonts and sometimes different colored inks! Frankly, I wouldn't trust the Ministry to effectively wipe my arse. Kings excluded. I _certainly _do not trust the Ministry with my education. I refuse allow ambiguous labels like 'Dark magic' which seems to have no _true _or consistent meaning," she took a deep breath, "stop me from expanding my mind."

Nott's throat went dry and he swore he was heating up. Salazar's rod, she was genuine. And she genuinely sounded a bit like an old blood purist ranting about Ministry overreach. He wouldn't tell her that, though.

Granger was genuinely interested in wilde magic. She wanted _him _to help her learn about it. He considered the options. He could reject the opening to talk about a fascinating, mostly taboo subject with fascinating, brilliant Granger, and let go of this admittedly excellent opportunity to get to know her beyond her golden girl persona or her prim bookworm façade (and he now firmly knew them to be masks of hers). If he said, no then what? She wouldn't give this up, that much was clear. She'd find another pureblood, likely Malfoy, or gods-forbid- Pucey the smooth, beautiful bastard, and pick his brain, go visit his library…

* * *

Hermione wasn't quite sure where Nott's mind had gone, but his eyes had gone a little unfocused and he stayed quiet after she finished her speech. Maybe she'd delivered it too enthusiastically, with too Gryffindor-ish zeal. Or went on so long that he stopped listening. Maybe he had so many books on the subjects that he was bored by it. Maybe he and his father had talked blood magic over Sunday roast…

"Oh!" Hermione yelped as the fern hanging in a pot behind Theo's head burst into flames. Hermione glanced around, thanked Merlin that the coffee shop had gotten so busy that no one had noticed the flames or her exclamation over the din of the customers. She tried to use a stealthy _aguamenti_ charm, but it came out a bit more powerful than she had intended.

As she tried to smoothly slide back into her seat, Theo finally startled out of his strange trance, noticed the poor, smoking fern, and looked a slight bit chagrined. Though his eyes were now wide and wild-looking, instead of vacant and absent.

"Fuck," he said. "I really need to get a hold on that," he muttered quietly in a voice that Hermione had to strain to hear.

He then straightened up and said in a very clear and proper tone, "I'd be delighted to discuss this topic with you further, Miss Granger. I'm afraid I need to leave presently, but I would be delighted if we could meet tomorrow or the next day. I will send you an owl with further details."

He stood up from his small chair and the small table in one smooth, perfect motion, an impressive feat for someone of his height and lankiness. Reaching out for Hermione's hand, he gave it a firm shake, nodded to himself, and promptly left right out out the door.

_Godric's tits what just happened? _She walked to a nearby discreet alleyway and leaned on one brick wall, more confused than ever. As she stared a curious patch of mold that look a bit like a seal, she tried to unpack the situation.

She'd been dealing with an anxious, slightly tongue-tied, teenaged Theo Nott before he up and set a fern on fire and shifted abruptly into Pureblood Scion of an Ancient and Noble House Theodore Nott, Jr. She knew she'd ruminate and obsess over this conversation and run endlessly in circles if she went home or sought out Harry and Ron right now.

She briefly considered returning to the archives, but she was starting to accept that the Ministry library was a no-place a dead end. No, she needed to speak with someone she suspected might know a thing or two about the knowledge she sought.

She took a deep breath, thought intently on her destination, and disapparrated with a quiet _pop_.

**End Note**

"All is a procession" comes from "I Sing the Body Electric" by Whitman:

The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,  
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers' gang?  
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?  
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,  
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,  
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)


End file.
